Conventional aircraft windows and canopies have traditionally been formed while trying to balance considerations of weight, strength, durability, and cost. Various materials have been employed in an attempt to find an optimal balance. For example, glass, while hard and resistant to abrasion, is brittle and heavy. And transparent polymers, such as acrylic and polycarbonate, while lightweight and easily formed into complex shapes, are relatively weak compared to glass. Yet even with their limitations, both materials are commonly used in aircraft industry. A more recent innovation, transparent composite materials, offer the strength of glass with the lighter weight of polymers and are becoming more common within the industry. However, there remain some challenges to implementing these materials in the manufacture of aircraft cockpit windows. Specifically, cockpit windows and canopies must have sufficient strength to survive bird impacts, for example a 500 knot 5 lb impact event. Even if the window itself has sufficient strength to resist such an impact, it's mounting to the aircraft must also be of sufficient strength so that such an impact does not cause separation of the window from the surrounding skin panels to which it is attached.
One obvious arrangement has been to mount the aircraft cockpit window to a metal frame which in turn is coupled to the structural body of the aircraft. The metal frame provides the needed strength to hold the window to the aircraft. While this type of window assembly with a window coupled to a metal frame has served very well in the past, the metal frame remains a relatively heavy component. 
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved aircraft window assembly that provides the strength to resist impact events while simultaneously reducing the weight of the window assembly.